::::WARNING OLD PEOPLE PERSPECTIVE INCOMING::::

Dating when you're young sucks because you have both decided you'd like to rub your genitals together, it's just a matter of whether you can stand to listen to each other blather for long enough for it to be culturally appropriate. As you can barely stand listening to yourself blather when you're young, things are awkward more often than not.

The more at peace you can be with yourself, the less anyone else sees of you spazzing out over how irritating the situation is. This makes them calmer, too. By the time you've got a job and a career and hobbies and stuff to center your ass, you can skip to the genital-rubbing quite quickly and then figure out whether or not it's worth hanging out.

I recognize that this is just another trite rehashing of "confidence is attractive" but when we say "confidence" we also mean "the patience to put up with other people's bullshit because we just can't be sussed to care about it anymore." Really, confidence is apathy with a smile.